Free Software Friday - Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5

Free Software Friday is our regular Friday feature here at the dBs Music blog. We dig the depths of the music production and media webosphere and discover what downloadable plugin freebies are worth double clicking each week.

We've reached a point in time where replicating real instrument sounds through software is almost indistinguishable from the real thing, though these software emulations come at a price. However, in the case of Native Instruments' Guitar Rig 5, these amazing sounds can be sourced for nothing!

Now before you get too excited, this is a stripped back version of NI's Guitar Rig 5 Pro, but that's not to say it lacks in sonic fidelity. Featuring one amp, 17 cabinet emulations and 13 effects and sound modifiers there's a range of classic tones at your fingertips, with the ability to drag and drop effects to the rack and create custom effect chains.

Thanks to its modular platform, Guitar Rig 5 is expandable and can be bulked out with additional components from NI's library, many of which are not tailored for guitar but can be used to tweak your original sound.

Utilities like a metronome, two tapedecks for recording and play-along, a tuner and a preset volume tool with dry/wet settings are also included to help fine tune your experience.

Guitar Rig 5 is available for both Windows and Mac and can be downloaded using the link below.